Friday, 15 June 2012

I did my workshop on Saturday, and amazingly and I do mean that, all the teachers turned up on time. You could have knocked me down with a feather when I realised that. Most other workshops I’ve been to have always started late with some teachers turning up an hour late, some even come half way through. But no, mine all turned up on time! I thought it went ok, but at times they did struggle with some of the tasks. I thought they were quite straightforward, but some really struggled to grasp some of the discussions, especially the one about assessment. As far as I can see they don’t seem to do much of that here, at least not anywhere near as much as back home. They barely seem to use any formative assessment strategies and rely on end of unit/term tests. The DHT was the best participant by far and I was really impressed by him. I am not sure why the school is in such a mess when he is clearly a very capable man. However, it doesn’t help that he is class committed and is also away a lot with other duties. I am due to go back next week to see how they are getting on, hopefully there will be some positive moves forward. All the staff said they found it very useful and they wanted more and at the start of the term. The feedback was good, well mostly. Some complained that the workshop was too long, it was shorter than their FIOH phonic trainings! Some wanted money to attend, which is the norm. Others wanted it during school hours, although what would happen to the children at this time is not clear. Probably leave them unattended which happens here all the time.

The number of times Sarah and I have been to various schools
and found the teachers missing or gone to their house or on other errands whilst
the children are left to run riot in the classrooms or school compound. It is
very frustrating as they don’t seem to understand that they really shouldn’t be
doing this and the HTs don’t do anything about it, but then they are guilty of
this themselves. On Wednesday I went off on my bike back to Wulli West where
I’d not been to for ages. Some of the HTs and teachers have been in and out the
Education Office telling me how much they miss me, which is nice! I forgot how
bad the roads on the North Bank are. I decided to visit 3 schools and only
managed to do 1 observation so a bit of a waste of time and petrol. Some
teachers were travelling, others were doing tests. Not a successful trek.

It has been really hot here the last few days, we are
praying for rain to try and relieve the pressure. I am sitting here typing my
blog and the sweat is dripping off me. I am lucky as my compound usually has power
as it is on the Governor’s line, so we get power pretty much every night and I
get to use my fan. However, Sarah is often without power. She either gets in
the day or evening and then the opposite the following day. Sometimes she has
no power at all for 2 days in a row. I am very glad to be on the Governor’s
line, but it is really not fair on the residents of Mansa Jang that are not. They
really should swap it around to make it fair or alternatively sack NAWEC and
get someone else in who can actually provide power to everyone. Despite what it
may sound like I am still enjoying Basse and loving everything here. The people
are really friendly and welcoming wherever I go.